RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – After months of gestures that previewed the decision, President Alberto Fernández announced that Argentina will leave the Lima Group, a regional forum aligned with the United States and harshly critical of Venezuela, noting the regional bloc’s policy of isolating the country under President Nicolás Maduro has “led to nothing.”
This is seen as a sign of alignment with hardcore leftist Kirchnerism, a wink to the president of the Chavista regime, Nicolás Maduro, and a new rejection of the figure of Venezuela opposition leader Juan Guaidó.
Official sources confirmed that the President decided that Argentina should distance itself from the group that provides support to Guaidó and questions the serious political, social and humanitarian situation taking place in Venezuela under the Chavista leadership.
The permanence of Argentina in that regional bloc is one of the sources of disputes within the Frente de Todos party coalition, since the sector linked to Vice-President Cristina Kirchner and aligned with the government of Nicolás Maduro, demanded the president leave the regional forum.
Led by Brazil and Colombia, besides being critical of Maduro, the forum is seen as agreeable to the agenda of the U.S. State Department that underpins the Venezuelan opposition leader Guaidó.
The news was confirmed in a statement from the Foreign Ministry chaired by Felipe Solá. In the written statement, they assure that “Argentina formalized its withdrawal from the so-called Lima Group, considering that the actions that the Group has been promoting at the international level, seeking to isolate the Government of Venezuela and its representatives, have not led to anything.”
Among the reasons for leaving, the Foreign Ministry states that “the participation of a sector of the Venezuelan opposition as another member of the Lima Group has led to the adoption of positions that our Government has not been able to and cannot support.”
For the Argentine government, “the best way to help Venezuelans is to facilitate an inclusive dialogue that does not favor any sector in particular, but to achieve elections accepted by the majority with international control.”
Toeing this line, it asks to add to the dialogue “voices coming from the main social actors of the country, such as the Church, the business sector and non-governmental organizations, without exclusions.”
The communiqué released by the San Martín Palace also states that “in a context in which the pandemic has wreaked havoc in the region, the sanctions and blockades imposed on Venezuela and its authorities, as well as the destabilization attempts in 2020, have only aggravated the situation of its population and, in particular, that of its most vulnerable sectors.”
The report states that beyond the decision to withdraw from the Lima Group, “Argentina will continue to uphold its commitment to stability in the region, and will seek peaceful, democratic and respectful solutions to the sovereignty and internal affairs of each State.”
The Context
Kirchnerism questions the alleged “extremist positions” of Washington, claiming that these sectors promote an eventual military intervention in Caracas. One of the main promoters of Argentina’s exit from the group was Alicia Castro, the former ambassador to Venezuela during Hugo Chávez’s government, who confronts the Government’s foreign policy.
Last year, Castro publicly opined: “Argentina should withdraw from the Lima Group, a subordinate group created with the explicit purpose of weakening the regional integration of Latin America and the Caribbean, disarticulating UNASUR and gathering regional allies of the United States with the aim of eroding the Venezuelan government and seeking a regime change.”
The Lima Group, of which former President Mauricio Macri was an enthusiastic promoter, was a problem for Alberto Fernandez since before his inauguration, when he received pressure from different sectors to stay and to remain. When he arrived at the Casa Rosada, Alberto Fernández avoided leaving and gave priority to the internal debate in the government space.
Last year, Argentina’s vote in the UN against Venezuela unleashed a complex internal debate in the government coalition and the President was on the verge of deciding to leave the forum. In the end, he did not do so. Until today.
After leaving the Lima Group, Alberto Fernández is expected to promote a link with the International Contact Group for Venezuela, mainly promoted by the European Union, of which Argentina has been a member since August to “seek peaceful and democratic solutions to the crisis experienced by Venezuelans” together with Bolivia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Panama, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom and Uruguay.
Joining this group of countries represented the intention of maintaining a distance from the United States, which has another road map to displace the Venezuelan regime.
Meanwhile, the Minister of Economy, Martín Guzmán, is conducting delicate negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which is controlled by the U.S. Treasury Department, and whose results will have an impact on Argentina especially in the medium term.
With Information from Infobae